As I walked down the hall, I felt an unsettling gloom diffuse within my body. I came to the room where she sat. Her lifeless body was motionless. I said, "I love you" and she smiled but only at my touch. Her face told me that she did not know of my existence but only of my presence. I wondered if she had heard me at all. So I sat and held her withered hand. And I studied her face which had been eroded by time. I saw her eyes, even though they were closed, I could see that at one time they held fear, sorrow, worry, joy and pain. I felt her skin and how tough it was and I knew that through the years they labored hard. I noticed how frail she was and I wondered, what happened to the beautiful light that used to project from this once happy and lively being.

Suddenly, she squeezed my hand and smiled at ME. I turned my head and started to cry, not tears of pity but tears of shame. Ashamed of myself for thinking that the person in front of me was nothing more than an empty shell. I had yet to learn that even though time had changed her physically, it had done nothing emotionally. She may not have known who I was, but she knew that I loved her and that is all that mattered.

Catherine Smith

Age 16

July 12, 1996